First Read has had enough

7/26/12 9:06 AM EDT

The fine folks at NBC, who have had it up to here with the cutting-back of access to presidential candidates on both sides, have had it up to here with the Romney team:

*** Romney’s press-corps faux pas: During his meeting with Miliband, according to the pool report, Romney answered questions from British reporters but did not take any questions from the American reporters, which isn’t protocol. In fact, it’s considered a bit of an insult to the U.S reporters who are following the presumptive GOP presidential nominee overseas. Even bringing this up will lead some to say, “There goes the media, whining again.” But folks, those of us that have traveled overseas and been involved in these VERY limited press avails have rarely seen heads of democracies TOTALLY ignore their own press corps but answer ANOTHER press corps’ questions. Sure, it would have looked REALLY bad had Romney ignored the U.K. questions. But is the campaign so intent on limiting media access that the candidate won’t call an audible when standing next to a leader from another country who DOES want to take questions? This is a bipartisan challenge for the press corps. Every president in the modern era has decided to pick up on some aspect of limiting media access to the president from their predecessor. The public never cares, because most of them distrust at least half of the press corps. But folks, it’s a slippery slope. Where did Obama get the idea of calling on an ordered list of questioners at press conferences? From George W. Bush. OK, our rant is over.

As First Read says, this is a bipartisan problem, not a Romney-only problem. The strict limitations on access the Romney campaign has imposed from the outset of the 2012 race have prompted plenty of chatter among reporters about how bunkered a Romney White House might be.